Man jailed for attempted knifepoint rape of schoolteacher cyclist on Nightcliff Foreshore

A man who dragged a schoolteacher off her bike as she rode along the Nightcliff Foreshore and tried to rape her at knifepoint has been jailed for two years.

A man who dragged a woman off her bike and tried to rape her on the Nightcliff Foreshore has been jailed for two years. Picture: Che Chorley

A MAN who dragged a schoolteacher off her bike as she rode along the Nightcliff Foreshore and tried to rape her at knifepoint has been jailed for two years.

Stuart Dumoo, 21, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to attempted rape following the terrifying early morning attack on January 31 this year.

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The court heard the 35-year-old woman was riding along the bike path near Rapid Creek Rd at about 5.15am when Dumoo ran up beside her and pulled out a 30cm knife.

Dumoo grabbed the back of the bike, forcing her to stop and saying “I want to have sex with you” and “Do you want me to stab you?”.

He pulled her off the bike and onto the ground and held the blade of the knife to her throat as she struggled to get away, saying “I’ll stab you” while the woman repeated “No, you can’t do this”.

Dumoo then grabbed the woman’s arms and forced her to her knees before reaching inside her leggings before she broke loose and tried to get to the road while he tried to wrestle her into the mangroves.

He put his hand over her mouth as she screamed for help but another man heard her screams and approached Dumoo, telling him to “leave her alone” and he got up and ran and hid in the bushes.

In setting a head sentence of four years, suspended after two years, Justice Judith Kelly said the woman was left “extremely distressed as a result of the attack” and had since undergone trauma counselling.

“Your offending has had a devastating impact on her,” she said.

“She thought you were going to rape her and kill her and she was terrified.

“She has had many sleepless nights, she has flashbacks of seeing you holding the knife against her.”

Justice Kelly said Dumoo was on a suspended sentence for an aggravated burglary in Western Australia when he attacked the woman and had been “drunk and roaming the streets with a number of other drinkers” in the hours beforehand.

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Justice Kelly said while the sexual contact was limited, “there was no doubt about what you were trying to do”.

“The fact that you did not succeed was mainly due to her being brave enough to fight you off but you still did not stop until your friend intervened,” she said.

Justice Kelly said Dumoo initially claimed “someone was cursing (him) and using black magic” but she said “you must know that that is rubbish”.

“The fact is you got drunk and you made the choice to behave very badly indeed,” she said.